Bill Sykes' Newsletter
from America.
(May 2003)
An ex-Brit gives his views-(without fear
or favor)---of the American Scene
Rebuilding Iraq. (Was it all about oil after
all?)
 President
Bush has declared that the foundations of Democracy have
been laid in Iraq, and that he will stand by Iraq until
democracy flourishes. That will be for the next two years,
or less, as I’m sure that is the amount of time
that he has left as President of the United States.
He also stated, (great guy for stating things), that now
is the time to rebuild the Iraqi infrastructure with the
help of members of the coalition for peace.
The general consensus of world opinion appears to suggest
that the Coalition of two who bombed the Iraqi cities
into ruins should be the ones to pay for the rebuilding.
The United States apparently has other ideas on the subject
and intends to "allow" the Iraqis the pleasure
of paying for the rebuilding of their own country by turning
over their oil interests to American and British oil companies
as payment for services provided.
Apparently the American administration set up a business
consortium, (even before the first shots against Iraq
were fired), and two year no-bid contracts were offered
worth approximately $60 Billion dollars, to be spent over
the next three years. These major contracts by-passed
the usual competitive bidding procurement procedures as
they were stated to be secret and classified due to reasons
of national security.
 It’s
not difficult to guess the identity of the major companies
that received the windfall, how about Bechtel, Haliburton,
Fluor, Parsons, etc. for starters. The Pentagon secretly
awarded a Halliburton subsidiary, (Kellogg, Brown and
Root), a two-year no bid contract worth up to $7 Billion
dollars, to work on putting out oil fires and the repairing
of other unspecified damage to petroleum industry property
in Iraq, after the shooting war started.
This was estimated to be a $50,000 dollars a day payment
for a five-man team. I know that the work is extremely
dangerous, but so is soldiering and fighting a desert
war and their pay is miniscule in comparison. In the last
year alone, Haliburton subsidiaries have delivered $1.3B
worth of services to the United States government for
work usually done by the United States military themselves,
such as the building of camps and the feeding and housing
of American troops.
The coalition forces were given a priority task of securing
all the oil fields in order to prevent destruction by
the Iraqis.
"So, this fray was about oil after all".
 By
coincidence the CEO of Haliburton, (prior to his appointment
as Vice President of the United States), was Dick Cheney,
who states that he has no financial interests in the Haliburton
Company - amazing!
The other major companies involved in the non-competitive
bidding contracts were of course Bechtel, Fluor and Parsons,
all of whom have one thing in common, lots of friends
in very high place to whom they had obviously over the
years made substantial monetary contributions. Jobs for
the good old boys - would I be the one to suggest such
malarkey - certainly not.
It would appear to me that such contracting procedures
could lead to all kinds of charges of corruption in high
places and possibly be the subject of possible future
legal action for fraudulent practices.
Mr. Cheney’s alleged business dealings.
Mr Cheney was a former Secretary of Defence,
former chief of staff to a President, and a former member
of Congress with no apparent business experience in the
oil industry - so the question arises why would he be
given the job of CEO of a multi-billion dollar oil service
company such as Haliburton? Could it be the fact that
he had associated with people in high places related to
government contracts, and that he attended many top secret
meetings where the allocation of classified contracts
were discussed, that got him the job as CEO at Haliburton,
as the company ended up with billions of dollars worth
of new government contracts.
During the five years Mr. Cheney was employed by Haliburton,
the company doubled the value of its federal contracts,
and Mr. Cheney became a very rich man. What a coincidence!
Of course there is nothing illegal in having friends in
high places and Mr. Cheney is not alone in having business
contacts with government procurement officers, but what
may be illegal is if the people in question benefited
from their association with the agents of the government
by receiving information that is confidential, (not available
to competing companies), and used that information to
financially benefit themselves, or the companies upon
which they served in Executive positions.
We welcome feedback about any of the contents
of these newsletters. Please send all correspondence to
bill_sykes@huddersfield1.co.uk
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